


The Win and the Loss

by FireEye



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29289495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Some things are simply stacked out of your favor.
Relationships: Celes Chere/Setzer Gabbiani, Daryl/Setzer Gabbiani
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	The Win and the Loss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wingsyouburn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingsyouburn/gifts).



Her clothing was drab, but then more extravagant textiles were still a _commodity_ after the Fall. Scars marred her arms and face – symbols of her survival. Of having dragged herself out of a half-burned wreck of an airship, and across a far off land to the shelter of a small frontier family who found her on Death’s door and took her in.

Daryl had spent over a year recovering from her ordeal. Even longer paying them back. And finally, she was on the road again, but the closest she ever managed to come to her old life was that, only every so often, she saw an airship in the sky overhead.

And then the end came, with a host of new frustrations.

Daryl shouldn’t have been surprised, she supposed, that Setzer had found someone new.

At first, she took the woman for Maria – with all the glitz and glamour, that would have been just his way. But no – the woman wore a simple, practical dress, and moved like a predator in the shadows, even in the midst of a bustling casino. There was an elegance to it, and a danger, and Daryl found herself drawn to it nevertheless.

So when the woman excused herself from Setzer’s side at the gambling table, with a roll of her eyes when he said something he no doubt felt was charming, Daryl followed her to one of the couches that lined the extravagant windows.

“You’ll forgive me for saying so,” she remarked, seating herself beside the woman and crossing one leg over its opposite knee, “but this doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

The woman’s head turned from the view – from a recovering but still-broken world – to Daryl, and took in her appearance. “You don’t exactly fit in, yourself.”

Daryl smirked.

“You’ve taken up with the wandering gambler, I see.”

“Yes.”

Laconic, this one.

Daryl liked her instantly.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Celes Chere.”

Daryl raised an eyebrow. She’d heard the rumors, of course, of the civil war in the Empire; of the Emperor’s finest against the crazed General Kefka. Then again, that was the Southern tale – the Northern was quite different, and the Eastern different still.

“The General?”

“The same.”

Celes didn’t take her eyes off her, but Daryl didn’t see any danger in glancing across the room. They weren’t enemies.

Engrossed in his game – his winning and his risk of losing everything – Setzer hadn’t noticed them at all.

“Tell me something – is he happy?”

Celes didn’t follow her gaze. Instead, she glanced at her hands where they were clasped against her knee. “Sometimes, I like to think so.”

They sat in silence a few moments longer. Daryl sighed, unable to keep a touch of melancholy at bay. Then she forced a smile, and clapped her hands to her knees as she stood.

“I guess that’s the best anyone can hope for these days,” she said quietly.

Celes was again watching her, eyes perceptively narrow.

“Daryl.”

_Clever_.

Setzer must have spoken of her, after all.

“Forget it,” Daryl told her. “You should only mourn someone once.”

With that, she stepped back into the crowd.

Her long stride took her past Setzer’s table. Behind him. Her fingers grazed the back of his coat, softly that he didn’t so much as look up.

He’d found something new.

Perhaps, then, it was time for her to do the same.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw Celes & Daryl and went _HMMM_! I hope you like it. :)


End file.
